


i say i'll jump, i never do

by jewishhelenarobles



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: F/F, Jewish Character, M/M, Post-Canon, new york city babey, the inexhaustible variety of life etc.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27626057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jewishhelenarobles/pseuds/jewishhelenarobles
Summary: Nick and Jordan, three years later.
Relationships: Jordan Baker & Nick Carraway, Jordan Baker/Original Female Character, Nick Carraway/Original Male Character
Kudos: 6





	i say i'll jump, i never do

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over two years ago, when I was in junior year of high school, and then just never posted it because I got this far and kind of ran out of juice; I didn't have any idea where the plot should go. Rediscovering it was a pleasant surprise. I'm 90% sure I won't finish it, but I'll mark this as multi-chapter just in case.

It was summer again when I next thought of Jordan Baker. She had graced the cover of a sports magazine left on the empty subway seat next to mine on my morning commute; her star, it seemed, had begun to rise again, not so much tarnished but polished by the scandal of four years ago. I picked the magazine up and skimmed the cover article, which gave a brash account of a dire rivalry with another Nordic-looking golfer liberally interspersed with descriptions of her summer wardrobe. The realization hit, then, that I hadn’t spoken with her in fully three years, closely followed by the deeper realization that I very much wanted to talk to her again. I couldn’t explain why if I wanted to, but at that time I might have said it was love or perhaps the remembrance of it. In any case, I picked the magazine up and put it in my brief case, fully intending to look Jordan up at her old apartment and give her a call. 

She didn’t live there anymore, as it turned out, and I didn’t trouble the operator to give me another number for her, but in a twist of fate that still strikes me as odd she called me at my apartment only weeks afterward.

It seemed that she had experienced one of those eerie parallel occurrences that are so frequent in a city of this size, and had found a copy of the Wall Street Journal at a train station which reminded her of me. She and I spent a pleasant quarter-hour on the phone, listening to each other’s tinny echoes as we talked trivia. I had been promoted in my firm; she had won her championship, a fact which I vaguely knew already and applauded her for accordingly. At the end of our talk, she burst out —

“Come up to lunch sometime. I want to see you again.”

“Sure,” I said. Then it occurred to me that she was engaged to be married, or had been three years ago, and I supposed it would be wrong not to ask.

“Oh, that’s all over now,” she said. “I’m with someone else. Come meet me at _____ on _____ Street.”

“When?”

“Soon, before I have to get in training again. How about Sunday?”

“Sounds fine,” I said, although the bottom of my gut dropped out at the unexpected nearness of the date. Something about seeing Jordan again made me feel like I needed a year and an army to prepare. Maybe it was the reminder of the events of the summer of 1924 that her voice brought, or maybe it was just her, but I was afraid and not a little resentful.

My fears proved unfounded. Next Sunday dawned bright and damp, a rare post-rainstorm day in the decidedly unpleasant New York summer, and the sight of Jordan’s face was just as rare and fine. She had gotten even more wiry, but her face remained unlined. I wondered briefly if I was still as handsome as she was.

“Hello, hello,” she said, embracing me. I held her hard chin against my shoulder for a minute before stepping back from her.

“So who’s this new beau of yours?” I asked.

“Oh, a Jewish psychoanalyst with a wife and three children,” she slung back gaily. “It’s all very covert, so you mustn’t tell anyone.”

“Of course not.”

We ate our lunch with gusto, and afterward, tripped along several blocks to the park. The shade of the trees dappling the grass gave our rendezvous the feeling of a landscape from _la belle époque_ , with the occasional leftover raindrop falling like a brushstroke onto our heads as we walked arm in arm.

“I thought you went back to Minnesota,” she said. “I called the address you gave me when you said you left. They told me you lived here. They were very surprised that I knew you, I think.”

“I was going to,” I said. I really had been going to. I couldn’t stand this city by the end of that summer, and I still can’t, and up until I sat down on the train back home I thought I would leave it for ever; but in the first real upset of one of my core assumptions about myself, I found that I couldn’t do it. So I stayed and got a new apartment, and kept on at my job, and hated my weakness of character, a weakness I could not bear to confront and yet couldn’t elude.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said. We sank into a companionable silence.

“Nick,” she said after a while, “I’m sorry for missing Gatsby’s funeral. Truly.”

“That’s all right,” I said.

“No,” she replied, “it really wasn’t.”

I was surprised that she felt that strongly about it, and told her so.

“Oh, I don’t give a hoot about old Gatsby!” She said. “It’s you I was guilty about. I abandoned you to throw the whole affair yourself. You could have used a friend.”

“Thank you,” I said uncertainly, “but it was quite all right.”

She didn’t seem to hear me. “All alone, with all kinds of strange awful people, I bet,” she mused. “I hope you didn’t have to foot the bill…”

Gatsby had not been in debt, and while I knew intellectually that that was a plain miracle, that didn’t stop the wave of anger that arose at Jordan’s assumption that he would be. “His estate paid for everything,” I snapped. “And there weren’t very many people there, after all. I was one of the only ones, in fact.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. She studied my face for a long minute; my anger ebbed, and we walked on.

We resumed our light chatter, the ghost of Gatsby fading as we made our way out of the park. When I reached my train station, Jordan grabbed my sleeve.

“Rose,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Rose,” she repeated, tugging my arm so that I turned to face her. “That’s my beau. She’s not married, and she doesn’t have three children. She is Jewish, but she’s not a psychoanalyst, she’s a copy-editor even though she studied classics at Barnard. And she’s wonderful,” she said forcefully. “I’d like you to come to my place and meet her sometime.”

She had upset something in the balance between us; we had each known, of course, exactly what kind of person the other was since the evening in Jordan’s car, but it was an unspoken rule that neither of us discussed it. She lied to me and I accepted it, and we told each other what we would tell a normal person about our lives, and held to the conviction that we were clever enough to know something about each other without ever giving ourselves the chance to be proven wrong. But now Jordan’s famous dishonesty had slipped again, and purposefully this time. I didn’t know what to make of it, and for a moment it crossed my mind to tell her that she must be joking and if it was true I couldn’t and wouldn’t see her again. But even if I hadn’t liked Jordan, which I did, I wouldn’t have lied to her.

“Of course,” I said. “That’d be lovely.”

The sharp angles of her body sagged in relief. The trip home passed in a blur, and all I thought of long after I got home was the unfamiliar and unsettling nervousness in her face.

—

I didn’t think I would take Jordan up on the invitation to meet her lover. It would be too strange, I thought, to see her out of context, where the rules of ironical wordplay we had created to facilitate our friendship would no longer apply. But somehow, when I got the call Wednesday next to join them for Sunday dinner, I couldn’t stop myself from saying yes.

Rose was not quite as tall as Jordan and a bit plumper, and she pumped my hand energetically when I walked in her door. “And you must be Nick!” she crowed. “Come in, I’ve heard so much about you, you must sit down, we’ll have dinner on the table in just a minute.”

I thanked her, and sat. The apartment was small and a fine crack spidered up the white kitchen wall. It occurred to me, as I looked at the Homer and Virgil crowding the bookshelf against the back wall, that it must be Rose’s.

Rose disappeared into the stove for a few moments and re-emerged bearing a roast. “Jordan!” She yodeled, and out Jordan came from a closed door on the left that I had assumed was a hall closet. She was wearing very straight trousers and a blouse that hung past her waist, clothes not so different from the very modern ensembles that she wore often the summer I met her, but they looked more mannish than any of those.

“Smells delicious, darling,” said Jordan, taking a deep breath in. Turning her head towards me, she said, “Nick! You came! I thought you’d never get here.”

“Well, I did,” I said. Jordan sat down, and Rose cut into the roast.

We had a very nice time at dinner that night, and talked about all manner of things that I somehow never talked about with my ordinary set of acquaintances: plays, poetry, music, even my work (Rose was a socialist and scolded me for my choice of employment; I dutifully played the devil’s advocate and ceded the argument to her, laughing, at the appropriate time). Jordan was as animated as I remembered her, but more sincere somehow, and Rose’s plain but lively earnestness drew me in as it must have done Jordan.

“Come back soon,” Rose urged me, when I insisted for the third time that it was getting late and I had to go.

“Yes, do,” said Jordan, rising. “I’ll walk you out.”

At the end of the hall, she stood facing me, looking as if she had a hundred things to say and could only say one. Finally, she said, “If I could convince her to move in with me, I would. But she’s frightfully independent and quite horrified by the crowds. I try to help out as much as I can before she throws a fit, though.”

I could see she was trying to convince me that Rose was not Myrtle Wilson. I wondered if this was actually the case, and if not, whether or not she believed it. I did not press her, but thanked her for the meal and put on my hat.

“Come back next weekend,” she called after me. “Saturday, since I’m practicing all day Sunday and Rose has her Workmen’s Circle meeting. I don’t want to lose you again so quickly after I found you!”

—

I did come back the next weekend, and the next, and the next. Jordan and Rose’s companionship was the balm for my thirty-two-year-old soul that my colleagues and college friends could never provide; I found myself laughing and even drinking with them, though never getting drunk. Jordan’s comfort with the intimacy of the apartment and her newfound domesticity made me wonder at first, and I found myself inventing ways that the whole thing could be a farce on her part, but she was committed to the thing in a way the old irony-shrouded Jordan never would have been. It surprised me that she managed not to go out to parties often, but she assured me that she put in enough appearances for the press not to wonder. 

One Saturday night, Jordan called me before I made the customary trip downtown to Rose’s apartment. “Don’t come up,” she said. “We’ll come to you tonight. We have a terrific idea for an evening, we haven’t done it in ages. Tell me your new address again?”

I did, and instantly regretted it. I fretted about where they could possibly be taking me for a full three-quarters of an hour until I heard the buzzer and let them in.

Jordan was dressed in an old one-piece suit and Rose in a dress that must also have been Jordan’s once. They were both flushed and laughing, and my fear returned with a force.

“Where is it we’re going?” I asked.

“Broadway,” they chorused, grabbing me by the arms.

“No, no, no, no, no, no—“ I said, but it was too late. We were halfway to Jordan’s car already. All through the car ride I tried to protest our destination, but they were consumed by joy and responded only to make fun of me. Jordan parked the car blocks away from Broadway, presumably as a red herring for wandering photographers, and we doubled around several times to confuse pedestrians. There was really no need; everyone was too intent on their personal dramas to concern themselves with one blonde flapper and her companions, but Jordan was nothing if not careful. 

They led me through an ordinary-looking black door guarded by an unsmiling man and quickly disappeared into the crowd, leaving me bewildered by the music, a song I thought I knew but whose lyrics were evidently quite different than I remembered. I made my way toward the bar, looking for Jordan and Rose as I did and catching a glimpse, here or there, of a blonde head and a brunette together, but they were nowhere to be found. I sat down in defeat, trying to judge how long to wait for them before I went home.

It didn’t take me long to realize that the man next to me was watching me intently. When he had succeeded in catching my eye, he held my gaze and very deliberately knocked over his drink.

“That was damned clumsy of you,” he said. “I guess you’ll have to buy me a new one.”

“Of course,” I said. “So sorry; I’m not usually so careless.”

His rounded face broke open into a grin. After I had ordered him another whiskey, he asked, “What’s your name?”

I told him the truth for reasons unknown to me. I was disoriented, even though I was not drinking.

“Carraway,” he mused. “I think I’ve heard of you. What’s your occupation?”

“Bonds,” I said. I could feel my lifeblood sapping away with every piece of personal information I gave him, but from a very great distance, as though I were newly dead and watching my body expire. “I’m a bond trader.”

“I wouldn’t know you, then,” he said regretfully. “Damn it! I was so sure I knew your name. I’m Sam Susskind,” he said, sticking out a hand. I took it, and his hand lingered for a moment too long before we broke. 

“And what do you do?” I asked, half out of politeness and half out of a genuine desire to know.

“Animation,” he said proudly. “Gonna be the next big thing.”

I told him I didn’t doubt it, and asked what the job entailed. It seemed to be a kind of Henry Ford artistry, with draughtsmen as interchangeable parts; he described the business thoroughly and clearly, with no small amount of humor, and against my will I was intrigued. He seemed flattered by my interest and asked if I had ever had any talent for art.

“I can’t draw a line,” I said, “but I used to write.”

“What about?” he asked.

“Oh, this and that. Part of a novel.”

“You should take it up again,” he said.

“How do you know I don’t write drivel?” I asked.

“Something about you. I can tell.”

I was pleased by this, though I always prided myself on being insusceptible to flattery, not like other men. He took my hand and led me out into the crowd, and I followed without complaint.

He was a very competent dancer, but we had gotten through only two songs before a tall redhead tapped him on the shoulder.

“We’re getting raided tonight,” she said in a restrained baritone. “I’ll warn the others in a moment, but I thought you might need an extra minute to collect your umbrella. Stella’s got it downstairs.”

“Again? We got raided just last week!” he exclaimed.

The redhead shrugged. “I’m just repeating what Claudia told me.”

“Well, all right. Thank you,” he grumbled. Turning to me, he said, “I’m off. Can’t be getting arrested when I’ve finally gotten a steady job. Be safe, and whatever you do, stay away from Officer McGinty if you do get canned. He’s nasty.”

I had to find Rose and Jordan, I thought. “Goodbye,” I told Sam. “And thank you.”

“I’ll see you again soon,” he said, as if he knew it.

—

I found Jordan and Rose near the exit; they had evidently been tipped off early as well, and we were blocks away before we saw the faintest sign of police. I was shaken by this brush with real danger, but they were unperturbed. Resolving never to go out with them again, I went home, my mind clouded by Sam’s smiling face.

Jordan surprised me again in a matter of weeks with an invitation to a small party. I went, but reluctantly, unsure what the evening would bring.

There had to be at least fifteen people at Rose’s apartment, and a haze of cigarette smoke hung over the animated crowd. It was not, however, dusky enough for me to miss Sam Susskind deep in conversation by the bookcase. He spotted me and grinned the grin that split his face in two. He made his way over to me and said, “I knew I’d see you again. I just knew it.”

“What’s your connection here?” I asked. 

“Rose is a friend of a relation,” he said. “And you?”

“Jordan’s an old friend. Of my cousin, actually.”

“How poetic,” he said.

“Very,” I agreed.

Rose and Jordan drifted over and began to make the correct acquaintances, but stopped when they realized we knew each other already, which gave them no end of delight. Rose inquired after Sam’s job, and he returned with a question about hers; they began to talk politics, and their conversation was exceedingly enlightening on the topic of Socialism. I had only a vague impression of class struggle from my time at college, and that night I learned that anarchism and Marxist socialism are quite different, different enough for Rose and Sam to carry on an argument for the better part of an hour, although every so often they would break out of it to call on Jordan for support or to poke fun at me. I found myself sinking into a happy daze listening to the arch rise and fall of Sam’s voice, and when he left a little past two in the morning, I followed him out. 

We went to my apartment; it was quick, but we lay talking for a while after the fact. At one point he rolled over on his side and said, “You know, it’s funny. If I hadn’t met you where I met you, if you were just a man on the street, I’d never have pegged you for a fairy.”

I didn’t want to hurt him by telling him how relieved this made me, or that until about two months ago, I wouldn’t have either. Instead, I said, “Tell that to my mother. She’s been trying to marry me off for years.”

“Well, you’ve certainly done a good job learning how to please her,” he said, and I felt a jolt at the accuracy of his assessment.

I had never thought of sex and romance as two sides of the same coin the way I knew other people did. Sex was something to do without sentiment or planning, with strange men like Chester McKee and the actor at college. Romance was eased into, with suitable women like the girl back home or even Jordan; it took effort to be felt, and never lasted long. This was something altogether new, unlike even the feelings I had had for Gatsby, which, as I was slowly and painfully admitting to myself, had been love. It did not fit into the code I had developed to please my mother, as Sam called it. I wanted to see him again, and over the next few weeks, I did.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Super Rich Kids" by Frank Ocean (what else?).


End file.
